27 Responses to “Magic bullet”

We’re not done with option one, my friend, if anyone still thinks we can kill them all and end it.

Here’s a suggestion: build hospitals, schools, libraries, roads & bridges before Hamas et.al. does. Make the jihad such a pain in the ass that young kids will grow up shunning it. The budget for this kind of Marshall Plan will be a fraction of the Defense budget and it’ll actually, you know, work.

Then, let’s use the money left over from the defense budget savings to build hospitals, schools, libraries, roads & bridges here at home.

That is, of course, accepting your utterly false premise that poverty — not hatred — is what motivates this violence. Which, as you see, Ara, I do not accept; nor does anyone else familiar with the facts.

And you’d advocate killing one billion muslims to solve the problem? Even if we could, then what? That would still leave 5 billion other people on the planet — and I guarantee you none of them are going to buy our Treasury bonds.

The End.

Face it: we won the war. It’s the occupation that’s killing us.

Do you think there is perhaps a “perverse incentives” problem?

That’s Psych 101 gobbledegook. Instead of buying into that, read up on the Marshall Plan. By all accounts, we should have sown German and Japanese soil with salt and rendered them sterile for 100 generations. But we didn’t. Why? Because it was in our self-interest not to do so.

your utterly false premise that poverty — not hatred — is what motivates this violence.

Who said anything about poverty? I actually agree with you about the hatred — but it’s hatred for the things we do, not what we say or believe. The record is pretty clear: we’re propping up corrupt military dictators and hereditary wastrels left and right. We’re handing out bribes by the billions — and none of the money ever gets down to the people.

Why not try something different for a change?

P.S. Your crack about “bribing them not to kill us” reminds me of that joke about management style run amuck: “Beatings will continue until morale goes up.” It doesn’t work so well does it?

And, in fact, pointlessly bribing people to stop waging war is not really “perverse incentives” , it’s giving in to extortion. Hamas says to Israel, nice country you got there….

By all accounts, we should have sown German and Japanese soil with salt and rendered them sterile for 100 generations. But we didn’t.

We destroy the fascist infrastructure, however, which is why the Marshall Plan worked. If we want a Marshall Plan to work in the Middle East, we have to destroy Islamism’s fascist infrastructure, including the financial branch (petrodollars, the Muslim Brotherhood), the political branch and the paramilitary groups. Since our enemies in the Middle East are so weak, economically and militarily, there’s no reason why this would involve much violence at all. Enemies can be defeated militarily and economically. All we need is the will and the organization to do it.

Until they do, however, we don’t have to sit here and take their lashing out. And it’s worse than foolish to do so. It’s intellectually, morally and spiritually … impoverished … to accede to your own destruction.

Since our enemies in the Middle East are so weak, economically and militarily, there’s no reason why this would involve much violence at all. Enemies can be defeated militarily and economically. All we need is the will and the organization to do it.

I come from a Middle Eastern tradition. Now I live in the deep South. It seems that wherever I go, I’m impressed by how long peoples’ memories really are, especially when it comes to perceived and actual injuries and slights.

Wasn’t it Faulkner who said, “The past is not dead. The past is not past.”

Now I live in the deep South. It seems that wherever I go, I’m impressed by how long peoples’ memories really are, especially when it comes to perceived and actual injuries and slights

That must explain how all of those Southern Insurgents popped up from the martyr’s blood that was shed during the civil war.

It also explains why those thousands of spontaneously generated martyrs overthrew the Union, established the Confederate States of America, re-instituted slavery and made the Dukes of Hazzard President for life.

Proof of your theory of spontaneous generation and proof that, in all of history, no one should ever kill a single enemy combatant.

Bob Millersaid

However, their defeat would lighten the good guys’ defense load. Isn’t it the jihad’s apparent success that draws front-runners to that cause? Its open failure, which a better strategy could accomplish with G-d’s help, could prompt potential recruits to shy away.

For every leftist argument that is obliterated, many new ones spring up in its place. Why is this?

Say we pay them off, form alliances, promote capitalism, democracy, etc…and they become our allies. The money has to start with someone before being filtered down to the people. So let’s give money to those ailing nations to build schools, hospitals…

Twenty years later, they stop being allies and go power mad, crazy, whatever (a hypothetical supported by history, but a hypothetical). Would you be able to say now, that you, and anyone on the left would look back at that twenty years and say “Well, at least we tried to do it the ‘right’ way.” Or would there be a fringe element out there who would send pictures of Bush shaking “=random Dictator A’s hand with the caption, “Republicans started this by supporting terrorism and giving money to tyrants 20 years ago…”

Enter new conspiracy theory, blah blah…

“Your way” works when everything goes grand…and when it doesn’t, it’s no longer “your way”, it’s twisted into a failure of the other guy, putting you in the gleeful position of always being right, via rhetoric.

If this isn’t a fight between good and evil, what is it a fight between (leaving all Rove/Oil/Corporate references aside).

Whoa there Ron, did you just say the US is good? Where’s your self effacing respect for the fact we’re a nation built on lies and the back of the less fortunate! The world is just one big gray…you and I, we’re only a breath away from bombing children in coffee shops…which, due to my moral platitudes, I am uable to categorize as evil in the first place.

I’m proud to say that my patriotism and love of this country (as a reformed Canadian…which also gives me absolute moral authority, according to the left, on immigration issues) isn’t dependent on which party is in office. Even if Hillary or Obama gets into office, you won’t see me dancing around nude in the mud using the flag to clean myself with chants of “Hillary Lied, Effective Healthcare died.”

Ara, these generalizations aren’t all aimed at you…sometimes it’s just disconnected ramblings on my part.

Y’all are making a grave error because you think that this is a fight between Good and Evil.
Kill em all and let God sort out the details. Right, Mary?

Ara, who are you arguing with here?

I already said that violence isn’t always necessary, and I’ve already said that our enemy in this war is waging war due to ambition. They want what we have, and we’re in their way. That’s why they’re the aggressors in this war, and that’s why we can’t make them like us, no matter how ‘good’ we are.

I do think they’re evil. Don’t you?

The purpose of war isn’t to make the enemy ‘better’ or good, it’s to render the enemy powerless. After that, the social outreach programs may do some good.

Someone on another blog said that if we really believe that social outreach programs and good-heartedness can win a war, we should have the Red Cross run the Defense Dept. and Homeland Security. Do you think that would work?